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platypus_fic2010-11-01 05:36 pm
platypus) wrote in platypus_fic2010-11-01 05:36 pm
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Fic commentary: Performance Anxiety
A very belated commentary for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kalleah. The original story is here.
The origins of this story are simple: I think there ought to be more fic where Ten and Donna, who are profoundly, ridiculously hot together, have sex and stay friends in the morning. On the rare occasions when I do see Ten/Donna smut (especially this long after the end of S4), it tends to involve schmoopy romance, and it's hard to sell me on Ten/Donna romance. Sex, though? I'm there.
I admit, that can be a fine line to walk. I really don't want to devalue friendship that doesn't involve sex, and I certainly don't want to reinforce the idea that there's a companion hierarchy with "the Doctor wants to shag this one" at the top. But I also get cranky when I hear that it would be icky for Ten and Donna to get it on, either because she's ooold (which is absurd, any way you look at it) or because they're just like brother and sister (fair enough; I just think "friends" is a broader category than "family," and can include cases like "these people sometimes do sex"). I don't ship them in an especially romantic way, but they have chemistry like whoa, and I think they'd be able to handle a bout of sex pollen or shag-or-die or my-vibrator-broke with their friendship intact. Thus, this story. (I think I have some fragments of a my-vibrator-broke story somewhere. Someday, world, someday.)
"No! No, no, nonono." The Doctor flung himself at the heavy wooden door, rattling the handle, pounding frantically and shouting. "Let us out! We can help you!"
Donna, well aware that this tactic had never once worked, stood back and surveyed their... hotel room? Moments ago, they'd been marched down a sterile white spaceship corridor by hostile (or at least perverted) aliens. Now they were locked in what looked exactly like a cheap hotel bedroom, down to the threadbare floral duvet and bland beige walls. "What the hell just happened?" she demanded.
The Doctor flattened himself against the door, squinting through the peephole. "They're gone," he muttered. "There must be bugs. Cameras. Microphones." Bounding to the other side of the room, he flung the curtains open, only to find bare wall behind them. He whirled on Donna. "Stay calm."
She crossed her arms. "They threatened to kill us if we refused to star in some... alien porno. This is calm." I was torn between having Donna point out that she's not the one freaking out here, and having her be a little more upset. It ended up somewhere in the middle, which is perhaps not as satisfying as it could be. I wasn't very confident about my ability to write Donna in loud mode, to be honest. There are many things I can relate to about her, but that's not one of them.
"It's not pornography," he said, eyeing her warily. "The Pyxids I went through I don't know how many alien names when I was writing this. I HATE NAMING THE ALIENS. I was trying to adapt constellation or star names for a while, but everything I would come up with would have some unfortunate connotation or other. I finally just threw a bunch of x's and z's at a wall, I think. have an infertility problem. Which I could help with," he added loudly, bending to speak into the clock radio, "if they would just let me run some tests." He paused. Nothing happened. He scrubbed at his face with a palm and continued. "Human breeding success is legendary among sentient species. Hence the demand for a... demonstration. They don't care that I'm not human." He picked up a vase of fake daisies and examined it closely, dumping it out on the carpet.
Donna opened the wardrobe door. "What are we looking for?" The hangers inside were attached permanently to the rod, and held nothing but two fluffy robes (how the hell did 'robe' get past me? I hang my head in SHAME. And here I'd just been thinking about all the work I did trying to make sure all these references to furniture and such were reasonably British) and a filmy negligee.
She jumped when the Doctor stuck his head over her shoulder, frowning at the garments. "Surveillance equipment." He moved on to investigate the bedside table, pulling the drawer open and hastily slamming it shut, then dropped to his knees to look under the bed. "I wish they hadn't taken the sonic screwdriver." It's Let's Explain Why They Can't Leave time!
Trailing behind him, Donna slid the drawer back open; it held a leather-bound book and a strip of square foil packets. It's a Gideon bible! I am so glad my betas allowed that past, because removing it would have killed me. She quietly shut it again.
Across the room, the Doctor felt carefully around the edges of an elaborately framed mirror, then tried to pry it away from the wall. It wouldn't budge. "It's probably here," he said, going nose to nose with his reflection. "Hello? Can you hear me? You're going about this all wrong." I was unusually visual about describing the Doctor ransacking the place, but it was fun.
The expectant silence stretched. And stretched. Finally the Doctor slumped to the floor in defeat, his long legs extended in front of him. He patted the carpet at his side.
Donna sat. "If this is some kind of alien fertility specialist's, why does it look like a Travelodge?" Donna is so much fun to write. And I am so glad that the UK has at least one budget hotel chain.
"They must be picking up old television broadcasts from Earth." He frowned at the decor. "Or possibly amateur videos. They think putting us in this environment will encourage sexual activity." As has come up in every other commentary so far, I don't quite like my writing of Doctor-trying-to-be-techincal.
She snorted. "What, no candles or wine or anything? I think they're watching the wrong channel."
"Donna," he said fiercely, "don't give up. We'll get out of this. We always do." I agonized a lot about the mood shifts in this part and ultimately think I muffed them a little. I wanted Donna sounding resigned and the Doctor getting all fierce to buck her up, but it doesn't really come across in her speech, so his seems weird and sudden. Oh well.
"We haven't exactly been here before." Though, if she were being honest, the situation wasn't entirely unexpected; she'd found a journal in the TARDIS library, written by some sort of space Casanova, and according to him aliens did things like this all the time. It beat anal probes and inside-out cows, she supposed. Not that she hadn't half thought the stories in the journal were fictional, like Cosmo Confessions, but they made for entertaining reading while stuck in the Vortex for repairs. She just hadn't planned on starring in one herself. Inside-out cows are one of those things I will never stop finding funny. It was really hard coming up with all the references in this paragraph and hoping they all worked, but I really wanted to show Donna having some familiarity with the idea of shag-or-die situations, or it would be unreasonable to expect her to deal with it with the degree of calm she does.
She narrowed her eyes speculatively at the Doctor See! She's already thinking, "Oh, what the hell?", who was smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand as if trying to jar something loose. "I just need to think," he said. It didn't sound promising.
"Well, they're aliens," she offered. I am never, ever, as long as I live, going to be able to use this as a speech verb again, having read a story where it was used hundreds and hundreds of times. "If you stick your little finger in my ear and wiggle it around and tell them we're done, will they know any better?"
"Donna, you're not supposed to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear. I was really shamefully indulgent about including things that made me laugh in this story. I won't be responsible for the Pyxids developing impacted cerumen in addition to infertility." He glanced reluctantly over at the bed. "Anyway, they can't be completely ignorant about human sex." It actually took me a while to remember to stop horsing around long enough to say something logical.
Neither, she reflected, could the Doctor. In nine hundred years of kicking around the universe, he'd probably picked up a thing or two just by accident.
"All right, then," she said.
"Sorry, what was that?"
She was pretty sure he'd heard her the first time. "All right. Let's shag."
He looked like he'd swallowed a fish. "You can't be serious."
"Look, if we have to choose between shagging and death, I'm not going to say, 'Guess I'll have a nice death, then,' okay? Cake... or death? Sorry. If we do what they want, we could be on our way in" – she considered his ego – "twenty minutes."
"No," the Doctor said flatly. "Out of the question. Absolutely not."
"Then let's see you come up with a better idea," she snapped, oddly stung. IIRC, beta(s) were a bit doubtful about that speech tag, but I felt like, despite her casualness about it, Donna had kind of put herself out there, and was sufficiently insecure to be bothered that he's so absolute about turning her down. Also, despite the silliness of the story, I really wanted to talk about the feelings that are there between them. I don't know if it all works exactly as I wanted, but I had to try.
"Donna, you're a very" – he seemed to consider and reject several things, which did not improve her mood – "magnificent woman. And it's not that I don't appreciate that, or, or... think of you that way –"
"Oi!"
"Hardly ever," he said hastily. I am embarrassingly easy for my own writing tonight, but this sort of thing is exactly what I wanted out of Ten/Donna fic. They banter so easily, and it's not that either of them wants an epic romance, but they could totally Do It. So in my mind, it's not at all inconsistent for her to both be offended that he might object to shagging her and be indignant at the remotest possibility that he's been, er, dwelling on the thought before now.
She didn't know which would be worse: if he'd secretly been ogling her breasts all this time or if he hadn't. She sighed. "Fine. So what's the problem?"
He ducked his head, red-faced. "I – can't," he mumbled.
"Can't? Oh, God, you mean we're not even compatible? You've got spikes, or tentacles, or... nothing?" That nothing cracks me up. I forgot how much I liked this story.
"It's not that!" He jammed his hands in his pockets and squirmed. "It's just... I can't... perform."
Donna furrowed her brow. "Right now, or ever?"
"On command! For educational purposes!"
Under any other circumstances, she might have been amused by his deepening blush. "Can't you at least try?"
"It's not like I can just flip a switch, and this isn't exactly helping to get me in the mood. We could still escape."
"We could still get killed. Is shagging me really worse than death?"
"It might help if I thought more about the shagging and less about the death!" He scrambled to his feet and paced away, scowling.
Gulping a determined breath, Donna stood and followed him, unbuttoning her blouse. "How about now?" she asked, pulling it open to reveal the lacy black bra beneath. Oh, man, this line reminds me – when I first began writing this story, I tried to do it as Ten/Rose. It fits Donna so much better that I actually managed to forget that. The original (very fragmentary) draft wasn't going anywhere, because there's just too damned much angst in the idea of Rose, who wants a romantic relationship with the Doctor, having to have sex with him because they're being coerced by aliens. (I know, I know, I also wrote Ten/Rose sex pollen, but I think I managed a different tone there.) This was one of the handful of lines that carried over, but Rose would really have been too empathetic (and angsty) for any of the jokes to work. Plus, the thing that made the Doctor go along with it in the end would have had to be some acknowledgment that they both wanted the sex, which is just a retread of what I've written before. Everything went much, much better with Donna.
The Doctor stared at the ceiling. "You know we're being watched, right?" I think it's debatable whether the Doctor would be quite this camera-shy, but since the whole story is based around it, I'm just forging ahead with it. I really could see it going either way.
"You're supposed to be thinking about shagging." She dropped the blouse to the floor and let her hair down, fanning it over her bare shoulders.
"It's hard to focus –" He glanced down at Donna's chest. "Ulp." One really cannot write Donna porn without acknowledging her magnificent breasts.
"That's better," she muttered. "Do you need some kinky alien thing to get going? I'm not licking your elbows." Or worse: "I don't have to slap you, do I? Tell me you don't get off on the slapping."
"Stop it," the Doctor said. "I do not need my elbows licked." I admit to wanting to leave some tiny ambiguity about whether he's actually dodging that last question or just ignoring irrelevancies. But there is such a thing as excessive crassness.
"Right." Donna jiggled helpfully. "Pay attention, then."
He leaned against the wall. "I am," he said, a bit more faintly.
She moved closer and trailed her hand down his chest, feeling the crisp cloth of his shirt and the unsteady rise and fall of his breathing. Ridiculous for touching him to seem so intimate when they hugged practically every day. She slipped a button free, then another, and found skin beneath. He swallowed hard. I kind of like the transition to a bit of seriousness here. Yeah, they're funny, but they also are going to have sex and neither one really has a problem with that.
"We don't have to do this if you don't want to," he said softly. "We can find another way." And emotional intimacy and stuff!
"Look, I don't want to swell your head any more than necessary, but you're not that hard on the eyes." Despite all Donna's protests on the show, she occasionally allows that he's not entirely unattractive. She loosened his tie, undid another button. "Anyway, I could always lie back and think of –"
"Oi! Don't tell me," he said, sounding a little hurt. Because of the dubcon elements inherent to shag-or-die, I wanted to make it clear that, whatever reluctance he has, it's not because he objects to having sex with her. If they're going to do this, he wants to do it properly, and he doesn't want her to lie back and think of England. Or Lee.
"What I mean is, don't worry. Nothing has to change. We leave here and it'll be the same as it ever was, you and me and the stars. Best mates. It's okay." I didn't want this to sound too much like "Never fear, I will not demand marriage and babies and a picket fence," because that's beside the point, and it kind of turns me off when fic harps on that sort of thing. It's supposed to be an affirmation that they'll still be friends in the morning, not a promise that the sex will be totally, absolutely, utterly meaningless. (Does that even make sense? I think he's far more afraid that she'll want to leave if anything gets weird between them than he is that she'll whip out the poofy wedding dress. I think they've already established the nature of their relationship, and that they love each other in their own way, even if that way (in this story, my interpretation, etc) is not romantic. So her promise that they will be okay, that this is okay, is what gets him over a big hurdle and lets him relax enough to, y'know, get into it.)
He started to look toward the mirror, but she cupped his cheek, gently turning him back to her. She couldn't read his face. His eyes met hers and stayed, even when he bent to kiss her palm, and something fizzed in her chest. She didn't stop to analyse it, just stroked his cheekbone with her thumb.
Eventually he broke the silence. "Donna, it's been... a long time."
"You and me both, spaceman," she sighed, then caught herself. "Oh. You mean a really long time."
"How many orgasms do you usually have?" That's a bit clumsy, but I had to get to the next bit somehow.
"Doctor!" she said, exasperated. "I'll settle for a quickie, okay?"
He straightened up indignantly. "If we're only doing this once, I'd like it to be memorable for more than the audience and how quickly it was over."
"What? Wait a minute." Donna rubbed the bridge of her nose and tried to ignore the pain in her temples. This was not the time to plead headache. "You're worried about whether I'll enjoy it?"
A tiny smile played around the edges of the Doctor's mouth. "You're remarkably oblivious sometimes," he said, taking her hand and drawing her closer. As touched as she was frustrated, she slid her arms around him; he pressed his lips to the top of her head, breathing softly into her hair.
"And you're – oh." His hands had settled on her hips and pulled her closer still, making his growing erection impossible to miss. As much relief as arousal flooded through her, and she couldn't hold back a giddy laugh.
"Compatible," he drawled.
She grinned, kicking off her shoes. "Then what are we waiting for?"
The Doctor tossed his jacket aside and sat on the edge of the bed, fumbling with the laces of his trainers. Donna came to stand between his knees and he froze, looking up at her, so close she could count the freckles standing out in sharp contrast to his pale skin.
His face went unexpectedly serious. "Donna, I –" He was probably going to say something sweet and/or embarrassing, but she doesn't really need it spelled out, and if he gets bogged down trying to clarify what kind of affection he feels for her they are never getting this done.
"Hush," she said gently, and leaned in to kiss him. Which is kind of her unspoken 'yeah, me too' to whatever sweet/embarrassing thing he didn't say. It's deliberately the only time they kiss, because kissing is really rather intimate and all, and could end up quite a bit more romantic than the whole sex thing if they let it. And also I hate describing kissing.
It started out careful, exploratory, more friendly than anything else, but then she parted her lips and his tongue proved very friendly indeed. By the time she pulled away, he was breathing hard. They both were. He stroked her back, lingering between her shoulder blades, and it took her a moment to realise he was searching for her bra clasp. "It's in front," she mumbled, with a twinge of self-consciousness. Undressing someone for the first time, it's a bit awkward.
But all he said was "oh," finding and nimbly releasing the hooks. Her shiver left gooseflesh in its wake, and her nipples were as hard as they'd ever been. She had an excuse ready – the room was a bit cold, right? – but the Doctor was already busy, pushing the cups out of the way and nuzzling eagerly at her. She's still feeling kind of awkward about being turned on, but that's eased when it's clear that he's not holding anything back either. He massaged her breasts, his fingers surprisingly talented, and held one so he could take the nipple in his mouth, sucking with quick flutters of his tongue.
She relaxed blissfully into it. "Oh, I knew you'd be a fast learner."
He rubbed the flat of his tongue over her nipple, then drew back and blew on it, making her shiver again. "It's like riding a bicycle," he said, but at Donna's dark look quickly amended, "...in almost no way at all." The gist of this joke, though not the specific comparison or circumstance, was borrowed something a friend of mine said on a MUD some fifteen years ago. I cannot believe I remember this at all. I feel like crediting him.
"If anyone here's all angles and sprockets, it's you," she muttered, but it was hard to be critical while digging her fingers appreciatively into his hair. He wasn't fooled, laughing softly and turning to kiss her other breast, rolling the nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
Before she'd quite had enough of that he stood, pulling his half-buttoned shirt over his head. He got hung up on his cuffs, and cursed quietly; while he was occupied, she lowered his zip and undid the catch and slid his trousers down. No spikes. Of course she looked. You would, too. But, as usual, I am not getting into details. He endured her scrutiny with nothing more than a wryly raised eyebrow, taking her wrist and tugging her onto the bed with him. She wriggled out of her jeans and knickers and he slid over her, more lithe than she'd have given him credit for, his eyes huge and dark.
"Wait." She yanked the drawer of the bedside table open and tore one of the foil packets free. He accepted it without comment, sitting up to rip open the wrapper and roll the condom on. This started out as a way to dodge any questions of whether she could get pregnant, because I thought they'd done quite enough talking already, but then it did seem a bit absurd that aliens would provide 20th-century contraception. Having one of them carrying the condom would require as much talking as the pregnancy question, and anyway, I liked having Donna check the drawer earlier. But then I thought of incorporating it into the ending, which (while deeply silly) solved some problems. When he was done, he nudged her legs apart and settled between them, reaching down to position himself; she tensed in anticipation, but he stopped, poised against her, his fringe tickling her cheek.
"It's not necessarily too late to try the ear thing," he murmured. He is not entirely serious, but this stands in for "Are you sure?" Which I used to hate as a fic trope, but damned if I wouldn't rather have it back than all the domineering dubcon that followed. (Also, a cheerful flip of the finger to writers who mock people's concerns by acting like any establishing of consent in a story must go something like, "May I penetrate you now?")
She laughed in spite of herself and swatted at his shoulder. "Don't you dare."
And then he was sliding into her, all the way in with one slow thrust. It had been a long time; she had to admit, it felt fantastic. "How's that?" he asked, shifting tentatively, as if getting his bearings. From the catch in his voice, it was pretty good for him.
"I won't break," she promised, with an encouraging rock of her hips. He made a noise that was half laugh, half groan, and started to move. The first few thrusts were languid, easy, but when he rose up onto his knees a bit, the new angle made her gasp with unexpected pleasure. She tried to stay quiet; if she called out for God or begged for more, she'd never hear the end of it. Or maybe they weren't going to tease each other about this. Maybe they'd really never mention it again. Maybe it would drive some awful wedge of silence between them. Apparently I can relate really well to Donna's potential insecurities. Does she talk about her feelings, though? No. She grabs his ass.
Giving him something to tease her about suddenly didn't seem so bad. She settled her hands on his arse, which wasn't quite as bony as the rest of him, and squeezed. He groaned, driving into her faster.
"Donna," he said urgently.
"What?" Okay, that's another indulgence of a personal foible. If anyone ever said my name during sex, I would figure that they had something to tell me.
"That was passion," he said, sounding slightly aggrieved but not slowing down for an instant. She squeezed again, and his eyes fell shut. "Donna. Oh." He fumbled and slid his hand between their bodies, thumb seeking out her clit; she let him know when he found it, crying out sharply. His thrusts grew harder, more frantic, and she arched to meet him, urging him on.
He was panting with each stroke now, face twisted with concentration, and given the way her own tension was mounting she hoped he could hold on a little bit longer. Before she knew it she was telling him so, gasping, almost there, almost... His eyes snapped open, staring into hers, and he opened his mouth as if to speak ("Hey! I figured out what the aliens' problem is! We can stop now.") but then her climax hit, and hit again, until she was making noises she couldn't control and really didn't care about. Somewhere in the middle of it all the Doctor tensed, stifling his own cry; his thrusts sped up, then gradually slowed, and he leaned his forehead against hers as he shuddered to a halt.
He rolled briefly away to dispose of the condom, then scooted back over to snuggle up with her. There might even have been a little afterglow, with the Doctor's head resting on her chest while she smoothed down his damp hair. I may not be overtly romantic about them, but a little cuddling never hurt anyone. He made a contented noise, stroking her arm as though he wasn't quite sated with touching her yet.
"Doctor?" she said eventually, nudging him in the ribs.
"Mmm?"
"What now?"
"Oh!" He sat up abruptly and pulled the sheet to his armpits. He might've lost track for a moment of his sudden realization. And of the fact that they were being watched. And everything else. "That's right. Well, I think I've figured out the Pyxids' infertility problem. It came to me while... er." He scratched the back of his neck. "While I was trying not to come."
Donna rolled her eyes and slid out of bed, fishing her clothes from the pile on the floor and tossing the rest at the Doctor. "Well?"
"It's like you said – they've been studying the wrong things, in their obsession with one particular era of human culture. All the details of this room." He tugged on his earlobe. "The condoms."
She stared at him. "You have got to be kidding me."
He grinned at her consternation. "Think about it. There's very little reason for them to go to the trouble of obtaining Earth-manufactured prophylactics. Unless, that is, they've forgotten, or never knew, what they were actually for. All we have to do is correct the misunderstanding, and the Pyxids can stop unintentionally practicing safe sex."
"Come on, then." Donna pulled her jeans back on and extended a hand to the Doctor. "Let's go save the world." I had the last sentence before the bits directly leading to it -- actually, I think I had it before I knew how the Doctor was going to fix the infertility problem. It does, perhaps, seem a bit abrupt, but I wanted the ending to be a cheerful "and then they got on with things like they usually do," and I didn't think they needed post-sex processing since they'd done quite a bit of pre-sex processing. I wanted to establish that, no, things aren't weird now. And maybe they will do this again when the vibrator batteries run out, or maybe they won't, but they're okay.
kalleah. The original story is here.The origins of this story are simple: I think there ought to be more fic where Ten and Donna, who are profoundly, ridiculously hot together, have sex and stay friends in the morning. On the rare occasions when I do see Ten/Donna smut (especially this long after the end of S4), it tends to involve schmoopy romance, and it's hard to sell me on Ten/Donna romance. Sex, though? I'm there.
I admit, that can be a fine line to walk. I really don't want to devalue friendship that doesn't involve sex, and I certainly don't want to reinforce the idea that there's a companion hierarchy with "the Doctor wants to shag this one" at the top. But I also get cranky when I hear that it would be icky for Ten and Donna to get it on, either because she's ooold (which is absurd, any way you look at it) or because they're just like brother and sister (fair enough; I just think "friends" is a broader category than "family," and can include cases like "these people sometimes do sex"). I don't ship them in an especially romantic way, but they have chemistry like whoa, and I think they'd be able to handle a bout of sex pollen or shag-or-die or my-vibrator-broke with their friendship intact. Thus, this story. (I think I have some fragments of a my-vibrator-broke story somewhere. Someday, world, someday.)
"No! No, no, nonono." The Doctor flung himself at the heavy wooden door, rattling the handle, pounding frantically and shouting. "Let us out! We can help you!"
Donna, well aware that this tactic had never once worked, stood back and surveyed their... hotel room? Moments ago, they'd been marched down a sterile white spaceship corridor by hostile (or at least perverted) aliens. Now they were locked in what looked exactly like a cheap hotel bedroom, down to the threadbare floral duvet and bland beige walls. "What the hell just happened?" she demanded.
The Doctor flattened himself against the door, squinting through the peephole. "They're gone," he muttered. "There must be bugs. Cameras. Microphones." Bounding to the other side of the room, he flung the curtains open, only to find bare wall behind them. He whirled on Donna. "Stay calm."
She crossed her arms. "They threatened to kill us if we refused to star in some... alien porno. This is calm." I was torn between having Donna point out that she's not the one freaking out here, and having her be a little more upset. It ended up somewhere in the middle, which is perhaps not as satisfying as it could be. I wasn't very confident about my ability to write Donna in loud mode, to be honest. There are many things I can relate to about her, but that's not one of them.
"It's not pornography," he said, eyeing her warily. "The Pyxids I went through I don't know how many alien names when I was writing this. I HATE NAMING THE ALIENS. I was trying to adapt constellation or star names for a while, but everything I would come up with would have some unfortunate connotation or other. I finally just threw a bunch of x's and z's at a wall, I think. have an infertility problem. Which I could help with," he added loudly, bending to speak into the clock radio, "if they would just let me run some tests." He paused. Nothing happened. He scrubbed at his face with a palm and continued. "Human breeding success is legendary among sentient species. Hence the demand for a... demonstration. They don't care that I'm not human." He picked up a vase of fake daisies and examined it closely, dumping it out on the carpet.
Donna opened the wardrobe door. "What are we looking for?" The hangers inside were attached permanently to the rod, and held nothing but two fluffy robes (how the hell did 'robe' get past me? I hang my head in SHAME. And here I'd just been thinking about all the work I did trying to make sure all these references to furniture and such were reasonably British) and a filmy negligee.
She jumped when the Doctor stuck his head over her shoulder, frowning at the garments. "Surveillance equipment." He moved on to investigate the bedside table, pulling the drawer open and hastily slamming it shut, then dropped to his knees to look under the bed. "I wish they hadn't taken the sonic screwdriver." It's Let's Explain Why They Can't Leave time!
Trailing behind him, Donna slid the drawer back open; it held a leather-bound book and a strip of square foil packets. It's a Gideon bible! I am so glad my betas allowed that past, because removing it would have killed me. She quietly shut it again.
Across the room, the Doctor felt carefully around the edges of an elaborately framed mirror, then tried to pry it away from the wall. It wouldn't budge. "It's probably here," he said, going nose to nose with his reflection. "Hello? Can you hear me? You're going about this all wrong." I was unusually visual about describing the Doctor ransacking the place, but it was fun.
The expectant silence stretched. And stretched. Finally the Doctor slumped to the floor in defeat, his long legs extended in front of him. He patted the carpet at his side.
Donna sat. "If this is some kind of alien fertility specialist's, why does it look like a Travelodge?" Donna is so much fun to write. And I am so glad that the UK has at least one budget hotel chain.
"They must be picking up old television broadcasts from Earth." He frowned at the decor. "Or possibly amateur videos. They think putting us in this environment will encourage sexual activity." As has come up in every other commentary so far, I don't quite like my writing of Doctor-trying-to-be-techincal.
She snorted. "What, no candles or wine or anything? I think they're watching the wrong channel."
"Donna," he said fiercely, "don't give up. We'll get out of this. We always do." I agonized a lot about the mood shifts in this part and ultimately think I muffed them a little. I wanted Donna sounding resigned and the Doctor getting all fierce to buck her up, but it doesn't really come across in her speech, so his seems weird and sudden. Oh well.
"We haven't exactly been here before." Though, if she were being honest, the situation wasn't entirely unexpected; she'd found a journal in the TARDIS library, written by some sort of space Casanova, and according to him aliens did things like this all the time. It beat anal probes and inside-out cows, she supposed. Not that she hadn't half thought the stories in the journal were fictional, like Cosmo Confessions, but they made for entertaining reading while stuck in the Vortex for repairs. She just hadn't planned on starring in one herself. Inside-out cows are one of those things I will never stop finding funny. It was really hard coming up with all the references in this paragraph and hoping they all worked, but I really wanted to show Donna having some familiarity with the idea of shag-or-die situations, or it would be unreasonable to expect her to deal with it with the degree of calm she does.
She narrowed her eyes speculatively at the Doctor See! She's already thinking, "Oh, what the hell?", who was smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand as if trying to jar something loose. "I just need to think," he said. It didn't sound promising.
"Well, they're aliens," she offered. I am never, ever, as long as I live, going to be able to use this as a speech verb again, having read a story where it was used hundreds and hundreds of times. "If you stick your little finger in my ear and wiggle it around and tell them we're done, will they know any better?"
"Donna, you're not supposed to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear. I was really shamefully indulgent about including things that made me laugh in this story. I won't be responsible for the Pyxids developing impacted cerumen in addition to infertility." He glanced reluctantly over at the bed. "Anyway, they can't be completely ignorant about human sex." It actually took me a while to remember to stop horsing around long enough to say something logical.
Neither, she reflected, could the Doctor. In nine hundred years of kicking around the universe, he'd probably picked up a thing or two just by accident.
"All right, then," she said.
"Sorry, what was that?"
She was pretty sure he'd heard her the first time. "All right. Let's shag."
He looked like he'd swallowed a fish. "You can't be serious."
"Look, if we have to choose between shagging and death, I'm not going to say, 'Guess I'll have a nice death, then,' okay? Cake... or death? Sorry. If we do what they want, we could be on our way in" – she considered his ego – "twenty minutes."
"No," the Doctor said flatly. "Out of the question. Absolutely not."
"Then let's see you come up with a better idea," she snapped, oddly stung. IIRC, beta(s) were a bit doubtful about that speech tag, but I felt like, despite her casualness about it, Donna had kind of put herself out there, and was sufficiently insecure to be bothered that he's so absolute about turning her down. Also, despite the silliness of the story, I really wanted to talk about the feelings that are there between them. I don't know if it all works exactly as I wanted, but I had to try.
"Donna, you're a very" – he seemed to consider and reject several things, which did not improve her mood – "magnificent woman. And it's not that I don't appreciate that, or, or... think of you that way –"
"Oi!"
"Hardly ever," he said hastily. I am embarrassingly easy for my own writing tonight, but this sort of thing is exactly what I wanted out of Ten/Donna fic. They banter so easily, and it's not that either of them wants an epic romance, but they could totally Do It. So in my mind, it's not at all inconsistent for her to both be offended that he might object to shagging her and be indignant at the remotest possibility that he's been, er, dwelling on the thought before now.
She didn't know which would be worse: if he'd secretly been ogling her breasts all this time or if he hadn't. She sighed. "Fine. So what's the problem?"
He ducked his head, red-faced. "I – can't," he mumbled.
"Can't? Oh, God, you mean we're not even compatible? You've got spikes, or tentacles, or... nothing?" That nothing cracks me up. I forgot how much I liked this story.
"It's not that!" He jammed his hands in his pockets and squirmed. "It's just... I can't... perform."
Donna furrowed her brow. "Right now, or ever?"
"On command! For educational purposes!"
Under any other circumstances, she might have been amused by his deepening blush. "Can't you at least try?"
"It's not like I can just flip a switch, and this isn't exactly helping to get me in the mood. We could still escape."
"We could still get killed. Is shagging me really worse than death?"
"It might help if I thought more about the shagging and less about the death!" He scrambled to his feet and paced away, scowling.
Gulping a determined breath, Donna stood and followed him, unbuttoning her blouse. "How about now?" she asked, pulling it open to reveal the lacy black bra beneath. Oh, man, this line reminds me – when I first began writing this story, I tried to do it as Ten/Rose. It fits Donna so much better that I actually managed to forget that. The original (very fragmentary) draft wasn't going anywhere, because there's just too damned much angst in the idea of Rose, who wants a romantic relationship with the Doctor, having to have sex with him because they're being coerced by aliens. (I know, I know, I also wrote Ten/Rose sex pollen, but I think I managed a different tone there.) This was one of the handful of lines that carried over, but Rose would really have been too empathetic (and angsty) for any of the jokes to work. Plus, the thing that made the Doctor go along with it in the end would have had to be some acknowledgment that they both wanted the sex, which is just a retread of what I've written before. Everything went much, much better with Donna.
The Doctor stared at the ceiling. "You know we're being watched, right?" I think it's debatable whether the Doctor would be quite this camera-shy, but since the whole story is based around it, I'm just forging ahead with it. I really could see it going either way.
"You're supposed to be thinking about shagging." She dropped the blouse to the floor and let her hair down, fanning it over her bare shoulders.
"It's hard to focus –" He glanced down at Donna's chest. "Ulp." One really cannot write Donna porn without acknowledging her magnificent breasts.
"That's better," she muttered. "Do you need some kinky alien thing to get going? I'm not licking your elbows." Or worse: "I don't have to slap you, do I? Tell me you don't get off on the slapping."
"Stop it," the Doctor said. "I do not need my elbows licked." I admit to wanting to leave some tiny ambiguity about whether he's actually dodging that last question or just ignoring irrelevancies. But there is such a thing as excessive crassness.
"Right." Donna jiggled helpfully. "Pay attention, then."
He leaned against the wall. "I am," he said, a bit more faintly.
She moved closer and trailed her hand down his chest, feeling the crisp cloth of his shirt and the unsteady rise and fall of his breathing. Ridiculous for touching him to seem so intimate when they hugged practically every day. She slipped a button free, then another, and found skin beneath. He swallowed hard. I kind of like the transition to a bit of seriousness here. Yeah, they're funny, but they also are going to have sex and neither one really has a problem with that.
"We don't have to do this if you don't want to," he said softly. "We can find another way." And emotional intimacy and stuff!
"Look, I don't want to swell your head any more than necessary, but you're not that hard on the eyes." Despite all Donna's protests on the show, she occasionally allows that he's not entirely unattractive. She loosened his tie, undid another button. "Anyway, I could always lie back and think of –"
"Oi! Don't tell me," he said, sounding a little hurt. Because of the dubcon elements inherent to shag-or-die, I wanted to make it clear that, whatever reluctance he has, it's not because he objects to having sex with her. If they're going to do this, he wants to do it properly, and he doesn't want her to lie back and think of England. Or Lee.
"What I mean is, don't worry. Nothing has to change. We leave here and it'll be the same as it ever was, you and me and the stars. Best mates. It's okay." I didn't want this to sound too much like "Never fear, I will not demand marriage and babies and a picket fence," because that's beside the point, and it kind of turns me off when fic harps on that sort of thing. It's supposed to be an affirmation that they'll still be friends in the morning, not a promise that the sex will be totally, absolutely, utterly meaningless. (Does that even make sense? I think he's far more afraid that she'll want to leave if anything gets weird between them than he is that she'll whip out the poofy wedding dress. I think they've already established the nature of their relationship, and that they love each other in their own way, even if that way (in this story, my interpretation, etc) is not romantic. So her promise that they will be okay, that this is okay, is what gets him over a big hurdle and lets him relax enough to, y'know, get into it.)
He started to look toward the mirror, but she cupped his cheek, gently turning him back to her. She couldn't read his face. His eyes met hers and stayed, even when he bent to kiss her palm, and something fizzed in her chest. She didn't stop to analyse it, just stroked his cheekbone with her thumb.
Eventually he broke the silence. "Donna, it's been... a long time."
"You and me both, spaceman," she sighed, then caught herself. "Oh. You mean a really long time."
"How many orgasms do you usually have?" That's a bit clumsy, but I had to get to the next bit somehow.
"Doctor!" she said, exasperated. "I'll settle for a quickie, okay?"
He straightened up indignantly. "If we're only doing this once, I'd like it to be memorable for more than the audience and how quickly it was over."
"What? Wait a minute." Donna rubbed the bridge of her nose and tried to ignore the pain in her temples. This was not the time to plead headache. "You're worried about whether I'll enjoy it?"
A tiny smile played around the edges of the Doctor's mouth. "You're remarkably oblivious sometimes," he said, taking her hand and drawing her closer. As touched as she was frustrated, she slid her arms around him; he pressed his lips to the top of her head, breathing softly into her hair.
"And you're – oh." His hands had settled on her hips and pulled her closer still, making his growing erection impossible to miss. As much relief as arousal flooded through her, and she couldn't hold back a giddy laugh.
"Compatible," he drawled.
She grinned, kicking off her shoes. "Then what are we waiting for?"
The Doctor tossed his jacket aside and sat on the edge of the bed, fumbling with the laces of his trainers. Donna came to stand between his knees and he froze, looking up at her, so close she could count the freckles standing out in sharp contrast to his pale skin.
His face went unexpectedly serious. "Donna, I –" He was probably going to say something sweet and/or embarrassing, but she doesn't really need it spelled out, and if he gets bogged down trying to clarify what kind of affection he feels for her they are never getting this done.
"Hush," she said gently, and leaned in to kiss him. Which is kind of her unspoken 'yeah, me too' to whatever sweet/embarrassing thing he didn't say. It's deliberately the only time they kiss, because kissing is really rather intimate and all, and could end up quite a bit more romantic than the whole sex thing if they let it. And also I hate describing kissing.
It started out careful, exploratory, more friendly than anything else, but then she parted her lips and his tongue proved very friendly indeed. By the time she pulled away, he was breathing hard. They both were. He stroked her back, lingering between her shoulder blades, and it took her a moment to realise he was searching for her bra clasp. "It's in front," she mumbled, with a twinge of self-consciousness. Undressing someone for the first time, it's a bit awkward.
But all he said was "oh," finding and nimbly releasing the hooks. Her shiver left gooseflesh in its wake, and her nipples were as hard as they'd ever been. She had an excuse ready – the room was a bit cold, right? – but the Doctor was already busy, pushing the cups out of the way and nuzzling eagerly at her. She's still feeling kind of awkward about being turned on, but that's eased when it's clear that he's not holding anything back either. He massaged her breasts, his fingers surprisingly talented, and held one so he could take the nipple in his mouth, sucking with quick flutters of his tongue.
She relaxed blissfully into it. "Oh, I knew you'd be a fast learner."
He rubbed the flat of his tongue over her nipple, then drew back and blew on it, making her shiver again. "It's like riding a bicycle," he said, but at Donna's dark look quickly amended, "...in almost no way at all." The gist of this joke, though not the specific comparison or circumstance, was borrowed something a friend of mine said on a MUD some fifteen years ago. I cannot believe I remember this at all. I feel like crediting him.
"If anyone here's all angles and sprockets, it's you," she muttered, but it was hard to be critical while digging her fingers appreciatively into his hair. He wasn't fooled, laughing softly and turning to kiss her other breast, rolling the nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
Before she'd quite had enough of that he stood, pulling his half-buttoned shirt over his head. He got hung up on his cuffs, and cursed quietly; while he was occupied, she lowered his zip and undid the catch and slid his trousers down. No spikes. Of course she looked. You would, too. But, as usual, I am not getting into details. He endured her scrutiny with nothing more than a wryly raised eyebrow, taking her wrist and tugging her onto the bed with him. She wriggled out of her jeans and knickers and he slid over her, more lithe than she'd have given him credit for, his eyes huge and dark.
"Wait." She yanked the drawer of the bedside table open and tore one of the foil packets free. He accepted it without comment, sitting up to rip open the wrapper and roll the condom on. This started out as a way to dodge any questions of whether she could get pregnant, because I thought they'd done quite enough talking already, but then it did seem a bit absurd that aliens would provide 20th-century contraception. Having one of them carrying the condom would require as much talking as the pregnancy question, and anyway, I liked having Donna check the drawer earlier. But then I thought of incorporating it into the ending, which (while deeply silly) solved some problems. When he was done, he nudged her legs apart and settled between them, reaching down to position himself; she tensed in anticipation, but he stopped, poised against her, his fringe tickling her cheek.
"It's not necessarily too late to try the ear thing," he murmured. He is not entirely serious, but this stands in for "Are you sure?" Which I used to hate as a fic trope, but damned if I wouldn't rather have it back than all the domineering dubcon that followed. (Also, a cheerful flip of the finger to writers who mock people's concerns by acting like any establishing of consent in a story must go something like, "May I penetrate you now?")
She laughed in spite of herself and swatted at his shoulder. "Don't you dare."
And then he was sliding into her, all the way in with one slow thrust. It had been a long time; she had to admit, it felt fantastic. "How's that?" he asked, shifting tentatively, as if getting his bearings. From the catch in his voice, it was pretty good for him.
"I won't break," she promised, with an encouraging rock of her hips. He made a noise that was half laugh, half groan, and started to move. The first few thrusts were languid, easy, but when he rose up onto his knees a bit, the new angle made her gasp with unexpected pleasure. She tried to stay quiet; if she called out for God or begged for more, she'd never hear the end of it. Or maybe they weren't going to tease each other about this. Maybe they'd really never mention it again. Maybe it would drive some awful wedge of silence between them. Apparently I can relate really well to Donna's potential insecurities. Does she talk about her feelings, though? No. She grabs his ass.
Giving him something to tease her about suddenly didn't seem so bad. She settled her hands on his arse, which wasn't quite as bony as the rest of him, and squeezed. He groaned, driving into her faster.
"Donna," he said urgently.
"What?" Okay, that's another indulgence of a personal foible. If anyone ever said my name during sex, I would figure that they had something to tell me.
"That was passion," he said, sounding slightly aggrieved but not slowing down for an instant. She squeezed again, and his eyes fell shut. "Donna. Oh." He fumbled and slid his hand between their bodies, thumb seeking out her clit; she let him know when he found it, crying out sharply. His thrusts grew harder, more frantic, and she arched to meet him, urging him on.
He was panting with each stroke now, face twisted with concentration, and given the way her own tension was mounting she hoped he could hold on a little bit longer. Before she knew it she was telling him so, gasping, almost there, almost... His eyes snapped open, staring into hers, and he opened his mouth as if to speak ("Hey! I figured out what the aliens' problem is! We can stop now.") but then her climax hit, and hit again, until she was making noises she couldn't control and really didn't care about. Somewhere in the middle of it all the Doctor tensed, stifling his own cry; his thrusts sped up, then gradually slowed, and he leaned his forehead against hers as he shuddered to a halt.
He rolled briefly away to dispose of the condom, then scooted back over to snuggle up with her. There might even have been a little afterglow, with the Doctor's head resting on her chest while she smoothed down his damp hair. I may not be overtly romantic about them, but a little cuddling never hurt anyone. He made a contented noise, stroking her arm as though he wasn't quite sated with touching her yet.
"Doctor?" she said eventually, nudging him in the ribs.
"Mmm?"
"What now?"
"Oh!" He sat up abruptly and pulled the sheet to his armpits. He might've lost track for a moment of his sudden realization. And of the fact that they were being watched. And everything else. "That's right. Well, I think I've figured out the Pyxids' infertility problem. It came to me while... er." He scratched the back of his neck. "While I was trying not to come."
Donna rolled her eyes and slid out of bed, fishing her clothes from the pile on the floor and tossing the rest at the Doctor. "Well?"
"It's like you said – they've been studying the wrong things, in their obsession with one particular era of human culture. All the details of this room." He tugged on his earlobe. "The condoms."
She stared at him. "You have got to be kidding me."
He grinned at her consternation. "Think about it. There's very little reason for them to go to the trouble of obtaining Earth-manufactured prophylactics. Unless, that is, they've forgotten, or never knew, what they were actually for. All we have to do is correct the misunderstanding, and the Pyxids can stop unintentionally practicing safe sex."
"Come on, then." Donna pulled her jeans back on and extended a hand to the Doctor. "Let's go save the world." I had the last sentence before the bits directly leading to it -- actually, I think I had it before I knew how the Doctor was going to fix the infertility problem. It does, perhaps, seem a bit abrupt, but I wanted the ending to be a cheerful "and then they got on with things like they usually do," and I didn't think they needed post-sex processing since they'd done quite a bit of pre-sex processing. I wanted to establish that, no, things aren't weird now. And maybe they will do this again when the vibrator batteries run out, or maybe they won't, but they're okay.
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I liked that part! Also, it was important, because Donna's mimicking of him led to her finding the condoms. His speaking loudly into the clock radio makes me giggle.
I enjoyed this one so much and I totally agree - it works so much better with Donna than it ever would have with Rose, or even Martha, where there would have been a ton of emotional baggage. With Donna, it's all about "will this be awkward tomorrow?" They probably tease each other about it later, and yeah, there's probably occasional more sex (undoubtedly initiated by Donna).
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There is nothing I hate more about writing smut. Except maybe describing orgasms. And getting rid of shoes. No, probably still describing kissing is the worst.
Great commentary. I'm not a big reader of Ten/Donna, but I still find the pairing very hot. I am, though, actively turned off by fic I absolutely can't believe and most Ten/Donna romance falls into that category. This fic gets the nature of their relationship just right.
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He is not entirely serious, but this stands in for "Are you sure?" Which I used to hate as a fic trope, but damned if I wouldn't rather have it back than all the domineering dubcon that followed. (Also, a cheerful flip of the finger to writers who mock people's concerns by acting like any establishing of consent in a story must go something like, "May I penetrate you now?")
"Are you sure" still makes me cringe (as you can probably guess), but I see your points. Especially the last one.
Thanks for this delightful commentary. It was just as fun as reading the story itself.
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